


Sleepless

by JacarandaBanyan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Blood, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, M/M, Nightmares, accidental violence, not much though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacarandaBanyan/pseuds/JacarandaBanyan
Summary: Steve is loves sleeping with his boyfriends. He loves the closeness and the comfort of drifting off with both of them at his side. So when Bucky and Tony's nightmares turn violent, he tries to power through it by himself.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 163
Collections: Marvel Polyship Bingo 2020, Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> Tony Stark Bingo Square R5: Never Meant to Hurt You, Card #3004  
> Marvel Polyship Bingo Square B1: Something Borrowed

The first night the three of them finally graduate to sleeping together, rather than reluctantly parting ways and haunting their own corners of the Tower, Steve got a black eye and a bruised rib.

That evening had been almost dream-like in how perfect it was. The only sour note Steve could think of was the little voice in the back of his mind that worried it was all an illusion, that he was asleep and everything would dissolve away as dreams do. 

He, Tony, and Bucky sat on the roof of Tony’s Malibu mansion, eating greasy cheeseburgers and watching DUM-E wheel in determined chase after the cliff swallows that flew in sharp gyrations, always just out of reach. Bucky was the most relaxed Steve had seen him in this century, and Tony’s frenetic energy felt playful and happy, without so much as a hint of mania or fear. Steve balanced his sketchbook on his lap and penciled quick impressions of the sea birds that cried over the crashing waves. 

The sun set beautifully over the ocean, turning the clouds pink and purple and orange and the sea to a broad plain of glistening yellow and orange sequins. Even as it sunk below the horizon, the warmth of the day stubbornly held on. The first stars twinkled overhead. 

The three of them had lingered there in the deepening dusk until it was too dark to sketch and DUM-E’s tormentor birds had returned to their nests. When the moon finally rose to usher them inside, Tony tentatively invited them to sleep with him that night. In both senses of the phrase.

And so that night, after they brought each other to completion, not a one of them rose to spend the night in solitude. Steve drifted off to sleep between the loves of his life, feeling like nothing in the world could ruin this. 

Then, at two in the morning, something hard and dully pointed slammed into his face and pulled him violently from his sleep. 

He was moving even before his eyes snapped open. Adrenaline flooded his system even as he tried to orient himself. Who was attacking him? Where was he? Shit, was someone here for Bucky? For Tony? The sheets tangled around his feet. If he really kicked, he could probably rip his way free-

A metal hand slammed awkwardly into his chest. 

To his right, Bucky was shaking like an epileptic. His flesh arm punched outwards, nearly hitting the bedside table. His eyes and mouth were both firmly shut. 

“Hey, Bucky, Bucky, shhh. Are you with me?” Steve whispered urgently. 

Bucky didn’t seem to hear him. 

“It’s just a nightmare. Shh, you’re okay. It’s not real, it’s just a dream. You’re safe, I promise you’re safe,” Steve chanted as soothingly as he could manage. Cautiously, he reached out and started rubbing soothing circles into Bucky’s shoulderblade, giving the seam between flesh and metal a wide berth. Bucky’s silent struggles subsided a little, but the motions were still strong enough to shake the mattress. 

To his left, Tony half-turned towards them, still asleep but on his way to consciousness. 

The shift of his weight on the mattress set Bucky off again. Quick as a lunging cat he flung out his metal arm in Tony’s direction. Steve intercepted him with a hand to the shoulder and wrestled him down flat on his back. 

“It’s just a dream, Bucky, you’re safe. We’re all safe here. There’s nothing to fight, there’s no mission, no one’s here but us. Shh, shh, you’re safe…”

Bit by bit Bucky relaxed under him. Tension bled from his muscles starting where his skin touched Steve’s and radiating out until his entire body was soft and pliant with easy sleep again. 

Steve lay there listening to his even breaths and waited for the first hint that the nightmare was returning. He was wide awake now. Adrenaline sat unused in his muscles, and it wouldn’t let him sleep. 

Bucky slept the rest of the night soundly. About a half hour after his nightmare had ended, he curled up against Steve’s chest so that his flesh arm lay across his stomach and his fingers just brushed against Tony’s lower stomach. 

Steve lay there and waited for drowsiness to descend upon him again. 

When the first rays of sunlight began to lighten the sky outside and the rib near the spot where Bucky had punched him no longer felt like it might be cracked, he gave it up for a lost cause and rolled out of bed as stealthily as possible to start his morning run. 

* * *

By the time he got back, both of his boyfriends were up and in the kitchen. 

“Hey Grandpa, I know they did things different in Ye Olden Times, but I’m pretty sure it was poor etiquette even then to leave your poor date to wake up alone in bed,” Tony called out to him teasingly as he stepped into the expansive room. He looked well-rested and energized, despite the oversized t-shirt he was drowning in. The thing had to be at least two sizes two big. 

It took him a second to recognize it as  _ his _ t-shirt. Tony must have stolen it. 

“‘Alone in bed?’ What am I, chopped liver?” Bucky complained. He slid past Tony to give Steve a kiss. 

“Good morning, Steve. Enjoy your run?”

“Yeah. I finally tried out that trail Tony was telling me about before that runs along the cliffs. It was very scenic.”

The effect of a full night’s sleep wasn’t quite as obvious in Bucky as it was in Tony, but even still Steve noticed the spring in his step as he returned to the stove to finish making breakfast. 

When they sat down to eat, he didn’t mention Bucky’s nightmares. Instead, he needled Tony about why he had a kitchen the size of an upscale New York apartment when he never cooked, which turned into Tony telling stories about his ill-fated attempt to teach the bots how to cook that had Bucky laughing and calling for a demonstration. 

The spot where Bucky’s arm had slammed into his chest ached, but the bruising had healed before it could properly show. 

* * *

That night the three of them slept together again. Tony whined a little about it being his turn to sleep in the middle, but Steve refused to give up his spot. 

“I got here first, Tony,” he smiled. “You snooze, you loose.”

_ If Bucky has another nightmare tonight, I need to be between you two, _ he didn’t say.

Sure enough, a few hours after Steve had drifted off to sleep, he was roughly roused from it by the sound of whimpering. 

He opened his eyes and glanced over at Bucky. The man was still sound asleep, head pressed deeply into the pillows and mouth just slightly open. 

The sound was coming from the other side of the bed. 

Tremors like little earthquakes shook Tony’s body. Since falling asleep against Steve’s chest he’d pulled away and curled up into himself. A small moan slipped between his harshly-set lips. 

Steve reached out and slipped his fingers through Tony’s hair. 

“Shh, shh, you’re alright Sweetheart. You’re safe, we’re all safe, you’re in your Malibu house and Bucky and I are here with you.” 

Slowly, like a skittish cat taking its time relaxing, Tony’s shivers began to subside and his whimpering eased into silence. He uncurled a fraction so that his back was once more in contact with Steve’s chest. 

Satisfied, Steve withdrew his hand from Tony’s hair and settled back in to sleep. 

As soon as he closed his eyes, however, the ice was waiting for him. Maybe it was Bucky and Tony’s nightmares influencing him, or maybe he was just overdue for some nasty dreams. Whatever the reason, the warm California air of their bedroom was gone and the ice was pouring in through the windows, carried in on waves of freezing arctic water, and he couldn’t move. 

He tried to make himself shift, but it was as though he was already frozen in place. Frustrated, he tried to call out to Bucky and Tony, but his lips refused to move and his voice was locked away deep inside his throat.

There was nothing he could do but lie there and watch the water level rise and the ice begin to spread. Like a vigorous groundcover plant extending ever outwards, the ice spread across his body until it covered him completely. The cold thrummed through his skin, settling deeper and deeper until it was in his bones. The ice got heavier and heavier until he was sure it would crush him-

A sudden mechanical whirring sound shattered the ice and startled him awake. 

Tony had curled in on himself again, and was making little animal noises of pain. One hand, however, was fully encased in Iron Man armor. More segments extended out and up his arm to the shoulder even as Steve watched. A bright circle of light lit up the room as the repulsor in the palm began to charge up. 

Frantically, Steve grabbed the gauntlet and shoved it to the side so it was no longer pointed at him or Bucky. The repulsor was like a hot iron against his skin, and he hissed in pain. On the other side of the bed, Bucky turned over in his sleep and gripped his pillow in a metal fist. 

“Tony, you’re safe. You’re in Malibu, you’re safe, there’s nothing to fight.” He shoved the gauntlet again, using it to turn Tony around so that his back faced Steve and his arm faced the wall. “We’re all safe. You’re okay, you’re okay.”

Bucky stirred like he was going to wake up at any moment. Steve reached out with the hand that wasn’t busy stroking Tony’s hair and rubbed a few quick circles into Bucky’s shoulder. After a few seconds, Bucky settled back down into deeper sleep. 

Tony did not settle so easily. Whatever horrors he was seeing ebbed and flowed. Steve did manage to comfort him enough to get the gauntlet to retreat back into Tony’s watch, but it threatened to extend back out again multiple times over the next hour. By the time Tony’s breathing turned deep and easy again, the holographic clock Jarvis kept projected on the nightstand read 4:15 AM. 

* * *

In the few hours before the sun rose, the burn on his arm from the repulsor had not yet healed. When he rose to go run, he fumbled around looking for bandages or something in the bathroom to cover it with. Then he remembered Tony sitting at the table yesterday morning in Steve’s old t-shirt, and had an idea. He slipped one of Bucky’s baggier hoodies on to test where the sleeves fell. Sure enough, they covered up the spot just above his palm where the burn wrapped around a sold half of his wrist. 

He pulled it off and tied it around his waist. If the burn mark was still there when he got back, he’d cover it with the borrowed hoodie. 

* * *

Fatigue settled into Steve’s bones and made itself at home. 

His boyfriend’s nightmares didn’t turn physical every night, but more often than not his sleep was interrupted by an attack from one side or another. He managed to sooth them back into calm, deep sleep, but not before they landed a hit. Bruises, scrapes and burns began to accumulate in patches on his arms, chest and stomach. 

He hid them all. Most of them easily fell under his shirt, and many of them didn’t even look all that out of place on him- the bruises especially could easily have been souvenirs from a training exercise. 

He told himself he was hiding them because it would upset them, which was true. Both of them were already scared enough of hurting people on accident. If one of them managed to leave a mark on Steve, they were sure to overreact. 

But it wasn’t just that. He didn’t want to sleep without the two of them. He liked nodding off to sleep between the two of them. He liked their heartbeats slowing down beat by beat until they settled into a calm, easy rhythm of sleep. 

So he held them when the nightmares came, defended his spot between them so neither’s sleep-fighting would hurt the other, and tried to get as much sleep as he could manage. 

* * *

The Serum did its best, but by the second week Tony and Bucky began to notice that he was more tired than usual. 

“It’s fine,” he insisted. 

And really, it was. Honestly, he probably would have trouble falling asleep if they went back to their old routines now. Lying on a mattress so soft it could be a cloud, listening to Bucky and Tony banter over him as they settled in on either side of him and snuggled in close had quickly gone from new and special to familiar and necessary. The warmth of their bodies surrounding him staved off most of his own nightmares of icy water and metal trains rushing through snowy mountains. If he went back to sleeping alone, his quality of sleep would probably suffer even worse. 

Besides, he didn’t need as much sleep as a baseline human, and for every kick or flailing punch that landed on him, another three didn’t. 

And then one night when Tony’s nightmares were bad enough to make him activate the gauntlet in his sleep, he actually managed to fire it. 

Pain tore through Steve’s right arm where he’d tried to knock the gauntlet away. The skin grazed by the blast was ugly and red, and already starting to weep little droplets of blood. He hissed and jerked his arm away. Up and off to the side, a brand new hole opened up in the ceiling, sending little bits of plaster dust falling like snow. 

Tony’s eyes shot open at about the same moment that Bucky went tense and leaped off the bed. 

For a moment, there was silence. 

Then Tony caught sight of Steve’s arm, and made the obvious connection to the hole in the ceiling and the fully activated gauntlet on his arm. 

“Shit.”

The gauntlet folded back into his watch. His eyes didn’t waver from Steve’s arm. 

“Shit.”

On the other side of the room, Bucky rose shakily from his tense crouch and awkwardly shuffled back to the bed. 

“Do you have any bandages in your bathroom, Tony?” He asked after a pause. 

“Bottom drawer, behind the soap.”

Bucky nodded, then silently made his way to the bathroom. 

* * *

“So how long has this been going on for?” Bucky asked as he methodically wrapped the the bandage around Steve’s arm. 

“Since we started sharing the bed,” Steve admitted through his teeth. 

“Is that so? You’ve been hiding wounds like this for over two weeks?”

Steve squared his shoulders and tried to project security and leadership the way he did when SHIELD agents questioned his reckless field calls. 

“Tonight was bad, I’ll admit. But it’s usually just a little flailing and whimpering- nowhere near what happened this time. It’s not a problem.”

Unfortunately, projecting “security and leadership” didn’t work on Bucky as well as it worked on SHIELD agents. 

“Care to elaborate on the “flailing” part of that, pal?”

Steve didn’t care to do that, actually. 

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Tony said. “I’ve already asked Jarvis to replay the video footage and stitch together a highlights reel for me.”

“Thank you, Jarvis,” Bucky said lightly. With a flick of his fingers he finished off the bandage. “I’d very much like to see that.”

“You don’t have to do that, Jarvis,” Steve said. “It really wasn’t-”

Tony sidled up behind him and wrapped his arms around Steve’s torso so that his chest pressed up against his back. The edge of the arc reactor casing bit lightly into the skin. 

“Wanna tell me why you’re so recalcitrant, honey? Whatever bad thing you think is going to happen, I promise it’s not. In fact, bad things, such as you getting hurt in the middle of the night, are hopefully going to happen less. So what’s the hang-up?”

Steve considered a strategic retreat, but there were no good routes open with Tony behind him and Bucky in front. 

“We can still sleep together, right? You’re not going to go back to your own rooms?”

“If you don’t want us to, then we won’t,” Bucky said easily. 

“We’ll just have to come up with some other strategies,” Tony agreed. “I, for one, will now be sleeping watchless.” 

“But having the suit on you makes you feel safe,” Steve protested. 

Tony looked regretfully at his wrist. 

“I’ll just have to take comfort in sleeping with you two around to fight off whatever evildoers come to attack in the night.”

Bucky gave his left arm a considering look. 

“Do you think you could make the newer model you’ve been working on collapse in the way your armor does, Tony?” 

Steve groaned. 

“Bucky, come on, you don’t need to do that.”

“If it means I can sleep with you and not try to hurt you in the middle of the night? Then yes, I really do need to do that.”

“Asking us to just ignore that we’re hurting you isn’t an option, Steve,” Tony said. “Some problems, you can’t just power through. Stop lying down on the wire and let me cut it.”

He wanted to argue, but he was so tired, and the adrenaline had worn off enough to leave him only a few steps above a limp rag doll. 

“How about you just go back to sleep, Steve,” Tony said. “We can talk more in the morning.”

Against his will, his eyes began to close. 

“That’s not fair to you, Tony. You need the most sleep of all of us,” he slurred. 

“Who’s the one passing out here? It’s not me, that’s for sure.”

A second later Tony’s lips ghosted over the shell of his ear. His goatee hair scratched pleasantly. 

“Sleep, Steve. We’ll figure something out in the morning, but we’ll figure it out together.”


End file.
